Daily Bulletin

Optometry staff member is mourned

"She had an open, candid and even humorous way of dealing with her experience, and incredible courage and an absolute insistence on getting well," Bevers said yesterday. "We learned so much from her willingness to share and from her courage in facing everything she had to face."

Maxwell began her employment at UW in July 1989 as a secretary/receptionist in optometry, and had been on sick leave for more than a year, apart from a brief return to work last summer. She was a member and current president of the Kinette Club of Preston.

She is survived by a son and daughter in Vancouver, and mother and brothers in Montréal. Visitation at the Barthel Funeral Home at 566 Queenston Street in Cambridge will be today from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. The funeral is expected to be held tomorrow.

The Taming of the Shrew

It's "a controversial play for our time", says Bettina Gaspar, a student who's doing publicity for this last major drama department production of the season. She adds that the Shrew "has often been labelled chauvinistic and demeaning towards women". You could say that again. But it's the same drama department that successfully staged "Oleanna" three years ago, and what's sauce for the goose, et cetera. . . .

The Stratford Festival also did the Shrew last season, and called on Lynne Magnusson of UW's English department to write the program notes. She commented on the play's starkly anti-feminist ending:

The other on-stage women are utterly silent, as the men enthusiastically congratulate the shrew-tamer. The play then comes to an abrupt close, summoning our immediate applause. This unspoken summons can make for a moment of intense discomfort for a contemporary audience, both women and men: they may be embarrassed, confused, in strong disagreement, or just plain angry. . . . As with today's gender-based advertising, the female spectator is given little choice but to act out in her own co-operative responses an acceptance of a representation that demeans her.

The production is set in Italy -- Padua -- but in 1962, not in Shakespeare's 16th century. And there's an introduction, written by director Coutts "in collaboration with students", set in the present day: "a troupe of starving actors" arrive at a restaurant and put on a play in exchange for food. Giovanna, the restaurateur, occasionally puts in her own comments from a contemporary point of view.

The production "is not to be missed", says Gaspar. "Comic twists, battles of wit, and conflicts between the sexes inject this play with high intensity and action." The show starts at 8 each evening, and tickets are $10 (students $8) from the Humanities box office.

How co-op placements are going

As of March 9, 3,508 co-op students were scheduled to be on a work term for May-August, 1998. Of these, 953 students had indicated that they were either returning to a previous employer or arranging their own job. Following the computer match for the initial round of interviews (which ended February 27), 1,349 students achieved employment. This means that 61.8% of all co-op students scheduled to be on a work term for May-August now have employment.

Last year at the same time the number employed was 60.28%. Even though there is an increase over last year in the number of students employed, the results are actually better because there are 157 more students scheduled to be on the May-August 1998 work term.

For the 1,340 students still without employment, the Continuous Phase holds additional opportunities. Job Posting #1 held a full complement of co-op positions. Postings will continue until the end of March. Interviews begin again on Monday.

Doctors will accept newcomers

"The issue of available family physicians has been a cause for concern among several applicants," she writes. (And concern among other people too; it's one theme of the Fair Share health campaign currently being aimed at local politicians.)

Says Scott: "In each case, the situation has been resolved by members of the faculty or department asking their own family physicians to take the new faculty or staff member and their families as patients. While this has been reasonably successful, we can't rely on this method indefinitely.

Career development seminars Seminars in the next few days in the continuing series sponsored by the co-op education and career services department: "Workplace Safety: Know the Issues", Thursday at 1:30, Engineering Lecture room 101. "Resume Writing", Thursday at 2:30 in Needles Hall room 1020. "Letter Writing", Thursday at 3:30, Needles Hall 1020.. "Interview Skills: Selling Your Skills", Monday at 10:30, Math and Computer 5158. "Gain the Competitive Edge: Know the Employer", Monday at 2:30 in Needles Hall 1020.

"Consequently, I have written all of the family physicians in the Kitchener-Waterloo area explaining our situation and asking them to help us by allowing their names to be given to new faculty and staff. There has been an excellent response and we now have over 30 family physicians who are willing to take new UW faculty and staff members and their families into their practices.

"The list of available physicians will be maintained by Health Services. Each physician has requested that their name be given only to new members of the K-W community. None will accept employees who already have a physician in the community but wish to change.

"Please contact Health Services for referral to one of these physicians."

Environmental attitudes and garbage

And it might just be worth noting that a great many interesting things are being done already about the campus and the environment, some of them through Paul Kay's course Environment and Resource Studies 285. (Kay will be one of the Green Talks speakers at noon hour.) This term, just to take one example, a group of students is studying the environmental attitudes of students in Ron Eydt Village.

Says their preliminary report: "By auditing information given out to Ron Eydt Village residents, improvements can be made to this communication link to further sustainability at the University of Waterloo. There is much work to do in the coming years to achieve our sustainability vision for the University of Waterloo campus. The 'new' campus will incorporate the environmental, social, economical and political structure of the University community, stressing the interconnectedness of these values. We feel that it is the responsibility of present members of the University community to achieve sustainability, enabling us to present future generations a healthy, viable University campus to maintain, enjoy and take pride in."

Patti Cook, UW's waste management coordinator, has an update on "garbage contamination", which was raised as a problem late in the fall term. "Staff and students in the four buildings identified with contamination problems in December are working diligently to ensure that the situation is improved," she says. "Many thanks to staff in Carl Pollock Hall, Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology, and the Student Life Centre for all your efforts. Students in Environmental Studies are analyzing the problem in ES1 and 2, and changes may be made based on their findings."

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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